


Kind Of A Big Deal (The Spy Matchmaker Mix)

by morganya



Category: Bandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-23
Updated: 2007-05-23
Packaged: 2017-10-20 06:58:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Travis comes to a realization, which William can't help but feel smug about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kind Of A Big Deal (The Spy Matchmaker Mix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Valentine's Day Is Pretty Much a Big Deal With You](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/3529) by speccygeekgrrl. 



William hadn't really been paying attention at the time. He was standing with Travis at the side of the stage, and there were flurries of activity behind them and even more in front of them. Travis was all over the place, like usual, all arms and elbows, bouncing up and down, twisting his body to wave at people he knew. He moved as if he were still getting used to his height, only half-conscious of how much space he took up. One of his elbows kept flying wildly past William's face. William only started noticing it after the second time Travis grabbed his shoulder in apology, shouting, "This place is too small!"

William just laughed, and kept dancing in place, swirling his fingers because he knew Travis thought it was funny. He was kind of thinking about the show, and kind of thinking about whether he was going to get fucked up tonight, and kind of thinking about the chord changes he still had to write. Weirdly, it was Patrick who brought him out of it, even though he was three feet away.

Patrick was singing - he was either in the middle of the song or somewhere near the end - and when William managed to find his place again, he started thinking that it shouldn't work the way it did. Patrick was tiny, and borderline cherubic, eyes and face hidden behind pointy glasses, but somehow, between the way the light was hitting him and the sweat in his hair and on his face and in the curve of his fingers on the mike stand, he became unearthly and magnetic, like he was made of gold and sound.

It shouldn't have worked, but it did, and he started talking before he really understood why. "Doesn't Patrick look good tonight?" he shouted at Travis. "He's got something going on there."

Travis stopped bouncing and immediately focused the high beams of his attention at the stage. "What?"

"Patrick. He's got something. I don't know what it is."

"Dude. Please tell me you didn't just check out Patrick."

"What? I just noticed," William said. "Like, I was thinking that it wasn't like you could define it -"

"You're actually thinking about this? Ten thousand things to think about, and you pick 'Patrick is the dreamiest?'"

"I didn't say that."

"Well, it's the same thing, isn't it?"

"Aw, shut up. I was just -"

"No, you know what? I want to hear this. Tell me all about what a sexy motherfucker he is."

"Look, I'm sorry that I have _eyes_ , okay?" William said, beginning to get annoyed. "I just said it."

"Okay," Travis said. He had an unfailing sense of just when to stop teasing, usually right before William got really pissed. It was really kind of a pain. "I mean, I was just asking. You always do this?"

"You can't tell me you've never thought about it. Like, what draws people to him."

"Nope. I have shit to do. _Important_ shit. Can't run around rating my friends on their relative hotness."

"You might want to try it."

"I'll put it on the to-do list," Travis said, and laughed. William noticed that he didn't stop looking at the stage, though.

When the show was over, they went to give their congratulations. Patrick opened the door, still sweat-shiny, hair curling around his face in golden strands. He said, like they'd just shown up at his house for dinner, "Hey! You came!", smiling huge and a little embarrassed. William bent down to give him a hug; when he straightened up he noticed Travis' eyes on Patrick. They'd gone soft and faraway, the way they did whenever Travis was thinking deeply. He might have already been recasting Patrick in his mind, placing him into some other category.

William couldn't help but feel a little smug about that.

*****

They stayed at the same hotels sometimes. Probably more than sometimes. They played the same venues and went to the same towns. Sometimes they asked each other if they'd still be swapping war stories when they were eighty, or if they were using them up now, and they would wonder if they would ever run out of things to talk about.

Sometimes, when there was nothing on television or if they couldn't face another sad hotel bar or if neither of them wanted to think about having to spend another day in the buses where legroom was an afterthought, they wound up in hotel parking lots, late at night, when it was hard to tell where the pavement ended and the land began because everything seemed so flat and dark.

It was part racing and part burning off nervous energy and part plain old tag, like kids. It wasn't like they ever planned it. They'd be standing around, drinking and just bullshitting with each other, and he'd suddenly catch a look in Travis' eye, a sidelong, sly glance, and then without a word William would take off running with Travis close behind.

They charged like football players through the lot, dodging parked cars, trying with varying degrees of success to keep their voices down so the management wouldn't come out and yell at them. Travis made threats that never amounted to anything ("I'm going to _beat your ass_ and then write about it on Myspace," was a popular one), and William would try to say something back over his shoulder, something witty, but he always started laughing too hard to finish.

It was late January, three in the morning. It was deep in Midwest winter; William's fingers and toes were numb but he wasn't going to say anything about it. They'd been dashing through the parking lot, wind burning William's ears. Travis finally skidded to a halt and gasped, "It's too fucking _cold_ to run," with his breath coming out in great white puffs. "Are we nuts?"

"I think so," William said.

"So I think Patrick and me should fuck," Travis said.

"Huh?" He'd missed the transition somehow, whatever connection there was in Travis' head. For a minute he wasn't sure he'd even understood. "What?"

"Me and Patrick," Travis said again. "I'm just saying."

Travis thought too much, William thought; for all his crazy verbal dexterity, there was still a lot of things that he didn't say, a lot of connections that it would never occur to him to make clear. William had thought he was used to it, had thought he'd known Travis well enough that he could follow his train of thought, keep up with every crazy thing that he said. He felt a little lost.

"When'd you decide this?"

"A while ago. I just finalized it."

"And how - why -"

"Because it'd be fucking great, that's why," Travis said. "Look, let's go inside now. My snot's starting to freeze up."

"Yeah," William said. He wasn't sure how this conversation had even started. He wanted to know where this had come from. "Yeah, okay."

He followed Travis' stride through the lobby, twitching his fingers in response to the sudden artificial heat. He kept trying to go through whatever memories he had related to Patrick and Travis, to see if it had started there and he'd just missed it, and there was a lot of stuff to go through.

In the elevator, William had a revelation. "It was _me_ , wasn't it?"

Travis jumped. "Dude, inside voice. I have valuable ears."

"Sorry. But it was me, wasn't it? I said Patrick had something going on when we were at that thing, and you looked at me like I was _high_ , but I said it first and you realized I was right and now I win."

"Oh, no, you don't. Don't go grabbing the credit. Just because you say something one time doesn't mean I, like, fall into your thrall or whatever. I just -"

"I did it!"

"No. No. No. Maybe a little."

William cackled.

"Shut up," Travis mumbled. The elevator doors swished open. "You want a drink? Still early."

"Why not."

In Travis' room, sprawled across the foot of the bed with a tiny minibar beer balanced on his stomach, William said, "So what do you think you're going to do?"

"Rock his world, I figured." Travis had his feet up on the desk, pushing the hotel stationary into disarray. He cracked a beer.

"Great plan, Travie."

"I don't know, man. I'm trying to decide if I want to wine and dine him or what."

"It's Patrick. You practically have to club him or something before he believes that you're interested."

"Boy needs an ego," Travis said.

"You know what you need to do?" William swallowed the last of his beer and tilted his head back at Travis. His hair was in his eyes; Travis smiled down at him through a web of dark brown strands. "I think you need to, like, stealth bomb him. So he can't overthink things."

"You can't _stealth bomb_ date. It'll backfire. He'd kill me. Or laugh at me."

"Oh, he fucking won't. Could I grab another beer?"

"Shit, I ain't paying for it, go ahead. I see him like every other week, Bill. I can't surprise him anymore."

William swung himself off the bed. "Maybe if someone else set it up?" He opened the minibar and grabbed something at random. "Like, I could call, and say I knew someone, and you guys should hang out, and then you could go to dinner and stuff."

"You're way too interested in my love life."

"I'm not," he said, though the truth was that he kept turning the idea over, and it had all started to feel kind of spylike and endearing to him. He'd fit Travis and Patrick together. It shouldn't work, but it somehow made sense to him - Patrick and Travis, Travis and Patrick, Trick and Travie - the syllables floated together like song notes in his head. "It could be really cool, you know? Like, you'd be like this whole other person to him, and he'd be like this other person, and you'd kind of come together and then you'd fit, you know, like this -"

"Drink that down, why don't you, Bill," Travis said.

William shut up and opened his beer. Travis took his feet off the desk and stared out of the window. Outside the sun was starting to rise, turning the sky blue and pink. There was a huge flock of white birds flying past the windowpane.

"Valentine's Day is kind of a big deal, you know," Travis said, slowly. "You think Patrick goes in for the lovey-dovey hearts and flowers thing?"

"Never asked him."

"It's happening pretty soon."

"The fourteenth? Two weeks or something."

"I think I might need one fuck of a stealth bomb," Travis said.

*****

A week before Valentine's Day, drunk, sitting in another hotel bar, William drew on bar napkins while he half-listened to Butcher's comfortable chattering beside him. He drew roses in dark blue ink, the wavy lines tearing through the thin paper, sharp phallic candles with indistinct flames.

He'd been sort of obliquely talking to Travis about the whole thing - the 'surprise Patrick with romantic excess and leave him reeling' thing, and it was always on the verge of turning into a contest where they each tried to come up with the most outlandish suggestion ("I'll get a horse!" Travis had said, "A Budweiser Clydesdale horse, and a fuckin' _ascot_ , and-"), but it was always the two of them, huddled heads together, plotting.

He was a matchmaker now. A spy matchmaker. The phrase pleased him. He wrote, "Spy matchmaker," on the paper.

"Earth to Will," Butcher said. "You're missing the best part. What are you doing, anyway?"

"Nothing," William said. He put the pen down. But now Butcher was interested.

"What is that?"

"Nothing. A napkin." William drew his wrist around the paper protectively. He hadn't really talked with Travis about letting anyone else in on this; they all saw each other too much, it wouldn't take much for someone to call up Pete or, God forbid, Patrick himself, and give the whole plan away.

"Lemme see," Butcher said.

"No, it's boring."

"Not to _me_." He leaned over. "You scribbled all over it."

"No, I didn't. Quit it!"

He could see the glint in Butcher's eye. William's heart sank.

Butcher's hands always moved too quickly for William. He batted away the defending hand. "What is that, a panda?"

"It's a _rose_ , you fucker," William said without thinking, before he could stop himself.

"I can't read your lefty chicken scratch," Butcher said, but that was a lie. "What's spy matchmaker? Is that a band?"

"No."

"Goddamnit, Bill -" Butcher actually looked hurt now, which always fucking did William in; he hated seeing anyone look upset.

"It's just something me and Travie said," William said. "It's so boring."

"Who's the matchmaker, you or him?"

Fucking Butcher. "Nobody!"

"I bet it's you. You're trying to set Trav up with - that's it, right?"

"This isn't fair, goddamnit."

"So who's the lucky one gonna be? Is it-"

"I can't tell you. It's a secret." He knew it sounded lame, but he couldn't help it.

"Come on, man."

"I swear to God, Butcher, if you open your mouth -"

"I'm mute. Come on. Be a pal."

"Travis has a thing for Patrick. I said that -"

" _What?_ "

"Dude, if you tell anyone, I'll kill you. I'll fucking _kill_ you."

Butcher laughed. "Calm down. I should have known you and Travis would do something like this."

"What's that mean?"

Butcher didn't say anything, just laughed and ordered William another drink.

He called Travis the next day in a haze of hungover guilt. He was a shitty friend and a shitty liar and he'd ruined the whole thing. When Travis picked up he said, "Don't get pissed."

"What'd you do?"

"Nothing. I just, uh, might have said something to Butcher about the thing last night."

There was silence on the other end of the line for a second. Finally Travis said, resignedly, "Oh."

William felt something get tight and sick-feeling at the pit of his stomach - Travis didn't even sound surprised. He'd probably been expecting him to fuck it up. William cursed himself - he wasn't trustworthy, he'd messed everything up and Travis would never forget it. He wasn't really sure how he was going to handle that.

"So it's just him?" Travis said. "That's it?"

"I couldn't help it. He's got ways of making me talk."

"He's got ways of making you drink. The booze does the heavy lifting from then on."

"I don't - Travis, I'm really fucking sorry."

"Look, it's done, you know?" Travis said. "I mean, it's not like I have any room to bitch you out myself."

"I mean, I was trying, and -"

"C'mon, Bill," Travis said kindly. "Forget about it. Would you feel better if I said I told Disashi?"

"I just - wait, what?"

Travis didn't answer. William could almost hear him smiling.

"Oh, you asshole," William said, sick with relief.

"We're the suckiest spies _ever_ ," Travis said; his laughter echoed as he hung up.

*****

William called Patrick at noon on Valentine's Day, standing in Travis' room, leaning against the dresser while Travis, smoking, stood outside on the balcony giving him the evil eye. He'd sent Travis outside on purpose; Travis tended to lose control of his mouth when it was important that he keep quiet, and William didn't want him making comments when there was a chance Patrick could hear. If he didn't already know what was going on. He said into the phone, hoping against hope, "There's someone I want you to see tonight."

"Bill, I have ten thousand things to get done by _yesterday_ ," Patrick said. "I really can't go out."

It sounded like typical Patrick - defensive and preemptively self-protective, needing to be forced into going after something good. The only way to deal with it was to plough on in spite of him. Patrick could never say no once everything was put in motion; his sense of obligation was too strong. Maybe the stealth bomb plan had been good after all. "No, I swear this is going to be really good for you."

"Are you new here or what? You're a pod person, right? Because the real William Beckett would know better than to try to set me up on a blind date. The answer is still no."

Travis started making 'wrap it up' motions from behind the glass door. William rolled his eyes and gestured at the phone receiver. He said, "Okay, he'll come pick you up at six, be ready!"

There was a sound halfway between a yelp and a snarl from Patrick's end of the line. William hung up before he could progress to actual words.

Travis opened the door. "What'd he say?"

"I think he called me a pod person."

Travis wasn't in a joking mood. ""Fuck you, if he isn't coming then I don't want you to jerk me around -"

"Chill out. He knows better than to argue with me. Just be at the restaurant by six."

"I don't want to do it if it won't work." He could hear the fear running under Travis' voice. All the planning, all the talk, and Travis was still freaking.

"It's going to work," he said.

Travis watched him warily. William said, "Hey, you trust me, right?"

Travis said nothing for a minute, and then he jumped up, almost banging his head on the ceiling fan, whooping with triumph, and grabbed William's shoulder in one huge hand and pounded on his back so hard that it almost hurt with the other, and William laughed back, thinking, _This is someone I know_.

"Six?"

"Something like that."

"I'll think of you right before I get his clothes off. You know, if I decide to go and spoil the moment."

"Fuck off," William said, laughing. "Ass."

"Yeah, but a hot ass. Who's about to get laid." Travis started to saunter towards the bathroom. "Want to head out, or you just want to bask in my reflected glory for a while?"

William decided not to mention that five minutes ago Travis had thought that Patrick wouldn't give him the time of day.

*****

The day after Valentine's Day, William had no idea what to do with himself. He channel-surfed without finding anything to watch, poked at the guitar with no result, acted sulky and snappish for no reason and then felt bad about it. He picked up the phone a thousand times without knowing who he was going to call. It was only when Travis' number flashed across his cell phone, that he figured it all out - he'd just been waiting for Travis to call.


End file.
